I like doing it because my mind can wander. Which it would do anyway. Only here, it's okay.
At different points, the list of "what I want to be when I grow up" has included: badderina, international animal rights lawyer, and girl on the SunMaid raisins box.
At work today, I stuffed envelops and stuck address labels.
As I'm doing this, I remembered being six and going into the ORT office with Nonny, and sitting at a long table in the back room with my sister, stuffing envelops and putting on address stickers.
I had a nice laugh at my desk.
I've always wondered why my technique in the fold-stuff-label process was so accomplished. And today I realized, it's because I've been doing it for 22 years.
I relayed this information to Christine, "Somehow I seem to be in the same place I was when I was six," and she responded, "No, you're in DC now." Ahhh, true.
Finally, after much ado...
I have made it to Trader Joe's.
Despite my best (lack of) effort, today was my first trip to the DC Trader Joe's in Georgetown.
Now, I love Trader Joe's. I will talk about TJ's with anyone. I think about their products. I envision the different TJ's stores I've shopped at. I talk about my local TJ's like some people talk about their local pubs. I love Trader Joe's.
For most, a day-before-Thanksgiving visit would be a test of such faith, such adoration. But fear not. People were (mostly) very nice to one another. Such is the power of the Hawaiian shirts, the pumpkin pie and cranberry fizzy juice samples, and the cheapie veggie bologna (though they had sold out of Tofurkey, as they do every year, says the word on the street).
At least half the people were on cell phones, asking about favoured ingredients and legume preferences. I had a strong recurring urge to buy a pomegranate, but resisted. (No, I don't know why. Apparently, that was a sticking point. But, somehow, the chocolate-raspberry thing was not.) At one point, there was an announcement over the PA: We have a cute, little cocker spaniel running around up here. If anyone knows.... Oh, he's yours? Oh, good. Hey, we found your mom...
I made it home with my Buccaneer Joe's pirate booty, my mild ajvar, my cranberry and white chocolate scones (and other necessities packed into the aussie cloth grocery bags I brought) and escaped the rain.
lists inspired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery yesterday
States of being:I was not filled with love for my fellow being yesterday. For them, I was filled with bewilderment or wonder or agitation, depending on the given being. But not love.
I *was* filled with love for the image, for concept, for vision, for artifact, for beauty, for the grotesque, for the shocking, for intertextuality, for the anomalous, and for the humourous. In a state of bifurcated reality, I was filled with the art and its execution.
Corner you must visit:American Impressionists and the Gilded Age. Second floor, NE(?) corner.
Go. Now.
Heard and overheard:in front of a photo of Tom Wolfe in a small galleryWOMAN IN GREEN SWEATSHIRT: Who is that?
WOMAN IN TAPERED JEANS: Oh, I think he's a writer.
stopping in front of the three other people looking at the side wallGREENIE: Oh, look at his hands!
(a photo of Bret Farve)TAPERED: But you can't see his face. It's all fuzzy.
GREENIE: I know. What's the point of the picture if you can't see his face?
in a Walt Whitman galleryAlexis! Alexis! Where are you? Stop running around!
in the Presidency galleryAlexis! Stop it! Alexis!
in graphic artsAlexis! What have I told you! Alexis! Come back here!
(I was very close to tripping Alexis the next time she ran past. Or the time after that. But I hadn't seen the rest of the exhibits I was interested in and did not want to be thrown out - although, I'm not sure I wouldn't have been given some parting consolation prizes...)
in a Gilded Age gallery, in front of a gold-leaf baby grand piano, with a pastoral scene painted inside the lidGirl 1: You know Teddy Roosevelt had one of these.
Girl 2: Yeah, you really like him.
Girl 1: Yeah, he did a lot in the arts.
pauseGirl 1: Ommm! AHHHHH! Ahhh. ENHHHHHHHHH. AHwwwww!
Girl 2: What are you doing?!
Girl 1: I'm trying to make it play, to make the strings vibrate.
Girl 2: Oh.
Both: Ommm! AHHHHH! Ahhh. ENHHHHHHHHH. AHwwwww!
It's not working. Girl 2 stops.Girl 2: You remind me of Finding Nemo, when Dory thinks she can speak whale.
(She demonstrates.)I turn the other way, so they can't see me laughing.in a gallery with four life-size heads of portraitists, hanging at their respective heights and a woman (full body, over-sized large head mask) watching from across the room (the artist and critic)WOMAN: *That* is a big head!
MAN: Yeah, let's go over here.
(pointing out the door)WOMAN: It's like she's staring right at you! Like she's about to talk to you!
MAN: Yeah. Okay.
(walking out the door)WOMAN:
(to no one) No, but it's like she's looking right at you. Wow.
Now that I think of it, there were a lot of disembodied heads. Trendwatchers, there ya go. I would say I'm giving you a heads up, but I won't.in "An Impressionist Sensibility" exhibition galleryTwo guards walk toward me, talking, not looking. They stop in front of me, one standing right next to me. I stop pretending I don't see them and look at the one who almost ran into me.GUARD: Oh, sorry!
ME: Yeah, it looked like you were coming over to tell me something.
GUARD:
(under his breath as they walk away) Oh, I have something to tell you...
later, on the other side of the room, he walks over. Oh, no. Please don't.He starts chit-chatting.GUARD: You know, working here has given me an appreciation for art now. I never really cared about it before, but now I look at all these paintings and it's really hard to do this. I could try, but I couldn't do it.
ME: Yep, they're good.
I'm being polite, but not really talking. I like being at art museums by myself. I like what happens in my head. I like going at my own pace. I don't go to chit-chat with strangers. I definitely don't go to get picked up.GUARD:
(in mid-other-sentence) I'm not bothering you, am I? I don't want to bother you.
ME: (staring straight ahead the whole time.) No. You're fine.
Because it's rude to say, Why, yes! Yes, you are bothering me. Please go away now. I have no interest in this dance. GUARD: Because, you know, before, when I saw you, I thought to myself, damn, that is a fine looking woman. That is one attractive woman. And I said to myself, I should go over and talk to her, and tell her. I wasn't going to, but then I decided to come over and tell you.
ME: Thanks.
staring straight ahead.GUARD: No, I mean, you know when you see a woman with a face like that, you gotta come over.
ME: Thanks.
GUARD: I mean, yeah, I had to tell you that I think you're pretty cute.
This isn't to say I don't talk to random people all the time. I do. And random people start conversations with me all the time. All the time. I must have "one of those faces". But there is a difference between talking and continuing to flirt with someone who clearly isn't reciprocating.GUARD: Yeah, I just have say I think you look really nice and you're cute.
ME: Thanks. Yeah, my girlfriend thinks I'm pretty cute, too.
(Pause.)Nothing like pulling out a fake girlfriend to end uncomfortable situations.GUARD: No!? For real?
ME: Yeah.
GUARD: For real?
ME: Yeah.
GUARD: Aww, man. No way!
ME: Yeah.
GUARD: Awright then. I just thought I'd say something.
ME: Thanks.
I cannot write without being present in the thing myself. Whether it is "about" me or not, I find that it is impossible to be wholly separate. If this is a failing, so be it.
Ding dong! Santorum's gone!
Yay.
And we have a female speaker of the house.
And South Dakotans voted against Draconian ridiculousness.
And Webb looks like (fingers crossed) the winner in VA. But (and I'm sure we'll all be
shocked) anything can happen in recounts, like "new" bags of votes can be "found", so I guess we'll see.
